RUTHFULLY YOURS

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Perhaps you have had the experience: enter a bookshop, ask for a politically incorrect tome and be told, quite possibly by some pierced young thing with a tattoo and a sneer, that such books are not welcome on the premises. Or, if the shop is carrying the title, you’ll be directed to a rear shelf where a single copy is displayed spine-out on the shelf and very hard to find.

Andrew Bolt is Australia’s most prominent and controversial commentator. In this second book of columns and reflections, Bolt is again in the front lines of our most urgent political and social debates, from Islam and immigration to the green movement and the rise of the slacktivist. But he also reveals his more personal side – the experiences that have shaped his values and love for this country. For some this book is ammunition. For others it’s fair warning. But for everyone it’s a test of their own values – and the reasons they hold them. Bolt’s columns are published nationally in News Corp newspapers, including Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Brisbane’s Courier Mail. He also runs Australia’s most-read political blog and hosts two week night shows – The Bolt Report on Sky News and a national Macquarie Radio show with Steve Price.

From the author of Still Not Sorry.

A response from an e-pal:

During the last 12 months nobody has won any money betting against Donald Trump. As I understand it the gravamen of Mr. Suissa’s argument is that some method should be found to deny the will of the primary voters either before or at the Republican convention in July. This suggestion would have been more beneficially applied to Obama’s candidacy in 2008. Had it been successful the likelihood of a populist Trump candidacy, which seems to horrify Mr. Suissa even more than the 8 mirthless, poisonous and treacherous years of Obama’s presidency, would have been remote. Denying the will of the people is a conceit of the political elite as Prime Minister Cameron just discovered on Thursday.

Those conservatives and Republicans who will not support Donald Trump because they imagine themselves to be too politically pure, too morally superior, too well educated and too sophisticated because they consider Trump to be an unprincipled quasi-liberal vulgarian are committing a costly form of sanctimony which will hand over America and the Supreme Court to a political party which has abandoned Israel, supports the hate-group Black Lives Matter and whose members have moved so far to the left they would be unable to see the center if they were standing on top of a ladder looking through a pair of binoculars.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Schnee

West Hollywood

“Obama certainly has that reverse Midas touch. Recall his efforts to secure the Olympics for Chicago that ended in embarrassing failure. After nearly eight years in the White House, President Obama can’t understand that the influence he has as president is a precious resource not to be wasted unless he is sure that he can make a difference. That includes efforts to influence domestic as well as foreign policy.”

UKIP leader Nigel Farage gave a backhanded compliment to President Obama when he said that many voters supported leaving the EU because Obama told them not to.

The Hill:

Threatening people too much insults their intelligence,” the United Kingdom Independence Party head said.

“A lot of people in Britain said, ‘How dare the American president come here and tell us what to do?’ ” Farage continued on Sirius XM’s “Breitbart News Daily,” citing Obama’s U.K. trip in April.

“It backfired. We got an Obama-Brexit bounce, because people do not want foreign leaders telling them how to think and vote.”

Britain on Thursday voted to leave the EU in a move experts predict will lead to worldwide financial uncertainty.

British Prime Minister David Cameron promptlyresigned Friday morning.

Obama warned Britain against leaving the EU during a visit in April, saying it could hurt potential trade deals with the U.S.

“The U.K. is going to be in the back of the queue,” he said during an appearance alongside Cameron.

“Not because we don’t have a special relationship but because given the heavy lift of any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely inefficient.”

Donald Trump on Friday mocked Obama for being on the losing side in the Brexit vote.

“The world doesn’t listen to him,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said during a press conference in Turnberry, Scotland.

Trump said he wholeheartedly backed Britain’s decision to leave the EU and once again forge its own path.

“You just have to embrace it,” he said. “It’s the will of the people. What happened should have happened, and they’ll be stronger for it.”

Editor’s note: The following is adapted from a speech the author delivered this week at the Westminster Institute in McLean, Va. The topic: “Defenseless in the Face of Our Enemies: What Keeps America from Protecting Itself from Radical Islam.”

Two weekends ago in Orlando, Fla., in the wee hours of the morning, a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub teeming with revelers. After killing and wounding scores of people, he took hostages in a restroom. He began calling police and media outlets, began crafting social-media posts, all for the point of announcing what was already clear to the nightclub denizens who’d heard him screaming, “Allahu Akbar!” — Allah is greater! — as he fired shot after shot: Omar Mateen was a stealth Muslim militant.

He was an adherent of radical Islam who committed his atrocity in furtherance of its ongoing jihad against America and the West. He took time in the midst of the carnage to make bayat — a pledge of allegiance — to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State terror network and its proclaimed caliphate.

By the time police barged in three hours later and killed Mateen in a firefight, he had murdered 49 people and wounded another 53, many quite seriously.

It should have been possible to see Omar Mateen coming. He was a first-generation American citizen, born in this country to immigrant parents from Afghanistan and raised in a troubled household — one in which the father is a visible and ardent supporter of the Taliban, the fundamentalist jihadist group that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, harbored al-Qaeda as it plotted and executed the 9/11 attacks, and to this day wages war against American troops as it fights to retake the country.

Mateen, who was 29 when he committed his mass-murder attack, was repeatedly suspended for fighting throughout his childhood school years. Academically, he had great difficulty — despite being nominally American from birth, he was mired for years in English programs for students who speak other languages in the home. His rantings during the attack indicated that he considered Afghanistan to be his home, and that he identified, first and foremost, as a Muslim: a member of the worldwide ummah — not a citizen of the United States, the nation he volunteered to levy war against, just as the Islamic State (or ISIS) exhorts its acolytes to do.

Gerald Walpin died yesterday after being hit by a car in Manhattan. Jerry was a renowned lawyer, a scholar, a proud Jew and supporter of Israel, and a principled advocate for the benefits and protections of the Constitution. This past Thursday I was in the front row with his beloved wife Sheila when he delivered a brilliant speech on the infringement of free speech and outright bigotry on American campuses. He was author of a wonderful primer on the Supreme Court versus the Constitution. I will leave it to others to write the encomia that he deserves with a long list of his many achievements.

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He was a great American patriot…..at all family events that I attended…birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations….we sang “America the Beautiful.” Jerry’s brilliance and tenacity made America more beautiful. I am proud to have been his friend. I offer deepest condolences to his children and grandchildren ….and to my friend Sheila. His memory is a blessing. rsk

The Financial Action Task Force, an international anti-money-laundering standards body, said Friday it would suspend some of its restrictions against Iran for a year to monitor Tehran’s progress implementing changes to its regulatory regime.

The White House has been pushing to ease the path for business into Iran since the implementation of the nuclear agreement, and removing Iran from the FATF blacklist would aid in that effort. Critics, however, are pushing back, saying Iran’s conduct hasn’t changed since the deal was implemented, citing, among other things, Iran’s support for groups such as Hezbollah.

The FATF, following its plenary session in South Korea this week, said it welcomed Iran’s adoption of, and political commitment to, an action plan to address deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policies, as well as Iran’s decision to seek assistance with implementation. Iran will remain on the blacklist until the full implementation is complete, and if Iran fails to demonstrate “sufficient progress” at the end of the yearlong suspension, the restrictions will be reimposed, the FATF said, calling attention to Iran’s issues with terrorism financing, without specifying what those issues were.

Among other moves in recent months, Iran ordered the implementation of an anti-terror financing law and it joined the Eurasian Group, an FATF-associate body, as an observer. If Iran meets its commitments, the FATF said it would “consider next steps.” In the meantime, the FATF called for members to tell their country’s financial financial institutions to “apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions,” using a risk-based approach, with people and companies in Iran.

“The FATF will continue to engage with Iran and closely monitor its progress,” it said in a statement.

Countries that fail to implement FATF’s standards on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policy run the risk of being labeled as high-risk or uncooperative jurisdictions, making it more costly and difficult for those nations to transact with the banking systems of FATF member states.

Iran has lobbied for removal from the FATF blacklist, seeing it as a roadblock to investment from foreign companies since the implementation of the nuclear agreement with global powers. Global banks have cited the FATF’s statements on Iran as one reason to hold back on investment.

North Korea and Iran are the only countries labeled as “high-risk or uncooperative jurisdictions” by the FATF. In February, the FATF said in its statement it was “particularly and exceptionally concerned” about Iran’s failures to address terrorism-financing issues, saying it poses a serious threat to the integrity of the global financial system. CONTINUE AT SITE

I think that the British exit from the European Union is wonderful, and the EU Commission head Jean Claude Juncker’s response was petulant…urging Britain to hurry up and get out.

On the other hand I feel some gratitude to Juncker…. At a commemoration of the Holocaust he lamented rampant and growing anti-Semitism in Europe in the strongest terms.

“I never imagined a Rabbi in Marseille would have to tell his Community it might be better to hide the kippa,” he said, referring to controversial comments made after a machete attack against a Jewish teacher. “I never imagined that Jewish schools and Synagogues would have to be guarded, I never imagined a Europe where Jews feel so insecure that immigration to Israel reaches an all-time high. 71 years after the liberation of Auschwitz this is intolerable.Europe cannot and will not accept this,” he continued. “Attacks on Jews are attacks on all of us – against our way of living, against tolerance and against our identity.”
“Our entire society has a duty to prevent Anti-Semitism and we must fight it on every corner – whether on the extreme right or the extreme left or when it is instigated by extreme Islamists,” he declared.
“We are determined: Never again. Because a Europe of hate is one that we refuse. Because a Europe without Jews would be no longer Europe.”

WASHINGTON — The White House confirmed today that North Korea conducted more “provocative actions” in “a flagrant violation of their international obligations.”

“U.S. Strategic Command did, in fact, detect and track what we assessed were two North Korean missile launches yesterday. The missiles were tracked over the Sea of Japan, where initial indications are that they fell,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at the daily briefing. “NORAD was also monitoring the launches and determined that they did not pose a threat to North America.”

“But I do think that the impact of these provocations will be to only strengthen the resolve of the international community that has such serious concerns with North Korea’s behavior,” he added.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that, of the test launches of the two Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles, at least one appeared to have been unsuccessful.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the first missile was launched at 5:58 a.m. and was unsuccessful, followed by a second launch at 8:05 a.m. “The second Musudan-like missile flew about 400 km,” the JCS said without elaborating. “South Korea and the United States are carrying out an in-depth analysis on it.”

Yonhap cited military sources saying that the first missile “burst into pieces in the air after flying some 150 km.”

“The South Korean military reportedly concluded that the second missile soared to an altitude of some 1,000 kilometers, which could indicate the country has improved the performance of the Musudan missile’s engine,” the news agency added.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to have watched the launches.

Pyongyang began testing the Musudan this April.

Washington’s response?”The United States will do what we have done in the past, which is work with the international community, particularly our allies in South Korea and Japan,” Earnest said. “We’ll also continue our ongoing dialogue with the Chinese and the Russians about what additional pressure can be applied to the North Koreans. And the key here will be to continue to work with our allies and partners to address this destabilizing threat in Northeast Asia.” CONTINUE AT SITE

“You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans,” Ayatollah Khomeini said, and promised to President Jimmy Carter that Iran would be a “tolerant democracy.”

Although the State Department has in its just released annual report on world-wide terror designated Iran as the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, the Obama administration has assisted Iranian militias in Iraq with air support, provided intelligence to Hezbollah’s allies on Israeli air strikes, and has steadfastly refused to use any military force against any elements of the Assad regime.

America is apparently bent on repeating — yet again — the historic wrong turn it took in 1979 by once again embracing the radical Islamic regime in Iran. Why would the U.S. administration think doing the same thing again will have a different outcome?

Senior leaders from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are in Washington, meeting with top U.S. diplomatic and defense officials, and are deeply concerned America has significantly worsened the situation in the Middle East by creating a “strategic partnership” with Iran.

Thirty-seven years ago, former American President Carter paved the way for Iran’s Islamic theocratic dictatorship to come to power according to newly declassified secret documents, reports the BBC Persian News Service. The documents show that former President Carter pledged to “hold back” the Iranian military from attempting a coup, which would have prevented the return of the exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from France.

The documents also reveal that the Carter administration believed –erroneously– that bringing the Ayatollah Khomeini into power in Iran, and in the process abandoning the Shah, would preserve American interests, keep the Soviets out of the region, protect U.S. allies, and ensure the flow of oil to the world’s industrial nations.

In one of his many messages to President Jimmy Carter, Khomeini played into that belief. “You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans,” Khomeini said and promised that Iran would be a “tolerant democracy.”

Unfortunately, the mullahs did not stop their terrorist ways; and the U.S. government, through successive administrations, did not stopped them, either.

The Reagan administration, for example, deployed “peacekeepers” to Lebanon under Congressionally mandated rules of engagement that, tragically, only facilitated the Iranian- and Syrian-directed bombings of the U.S. Beirut Marine barracks and embassy.

Then, the Clinton administration refused to lift an arms embargo and provide weapons to Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, ensuring that Iranian weapons and influence would fill the void.

The result of decades of the U.S. policy in Iran is that since Islamic terrorists took power in Tehran in 1979, Iran has murdered thousands of Americans[1] in addition to those killed in the bombings in Lebanon, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the African embassies, and the World Trade Towers in New York.

U.S. court decisions have so far held Iran responsible for more than $50 billion in damages owed to American citizens for these terror attacks directed by the mullahs and their terrorist proxies.

America’s military has also suffered. Thousands of American and allied soldiers have been killed and maimed by Iranian Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.[2]

It could be argued that the United States has at times had to make deals with unsavory countries. It was allied with the Soviet Union, for instance, in the fight to destroy Nazism in World War II. So, the thinking might go, a genuine agreement to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program might require some compromise and thus a type of “partnership”.

The Obama administration has, in fact, sought to justify its embrace of Iran by citing the assumed benefits from a nuclear agreement with Iran.[3] But the current “nuclear deal” with Iran is not a real agreement. The Iranians never signed it.